


Commentary for "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blow-Job"

by Unovis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Author Commentary, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1268656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unovis/pseuds/Unovis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my commentary for a remix that was essentially 13 different remixes, using a variety of techniques. The commentary was written a long time ago but was locked. It hasn't been posted on AO3 before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Commentary for "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blow-Job"

**Author's Note:**

> The remix was written for Sherlock Remix 2012. More details are on the story itself.  
> Thanks to Jay Tryfanstone and to Carenejeans and Taz, who read and commented on various stages of the remix.  
> This is a remix of [Object of Focus](http://archiveofourown.org/works/149076) by Jain.

I had fun playing with the remix process for "Thirteen Ways." I wrote a few short notes on the overall structure and each section, below. Short version: I based it on Wallace Stevens's poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." It's 13 mini remixes, with a few different approaches, styles, characterizations, & POVs, keeping some constant elements from the original and including a remix of one stanza from Stevens.  
After each section, I've listed first the type of remix approach I used in that section, and then the POV, the setting, references to elements of the original story, and other details.

 

 

***

**Original story:  
**  
For this challenge, there was only one story I could use, given my preferences. It had two basic parts, from Greg Lestrade’s POV. It begins with Lestrade musing on his difficult boyfriend Sherlock, whom he cannot adequately explain or introduce to his mother, his siblings, and a few select friends. He’s discussed Sherlock with them and shown them pictures, but they don’t understand that it’s not class or age difference or difference in looks or education behind Lestrade’s unhappiness with the relationship. Lestrade is dubious about their future and sad over the expectation that Sherlock would eventually leave him. Without setup or segue there’s a smash-cut to a kiss against a wall, leading quickly to oral sex and Lestrade bringing himself off by hand.

The sex act takes up the majority of the story, which ends with Sherlock leaving immediately after. Lestrade and Sherlock are fully dressed, no setting is specified, and there’s only a reference to Sherlock’s erection having been pressed against Lestrade’s hip for 15 minutes. There are many references to Lestrade giving, Sherlock taking, Lestrade’s familiarity with Sherlock’s preferences, and Sherlock’s lack of affection. After the act, Lestrade asks Sherlock if he has to leave or if he’ll stay; Sherlock says no, he has an experiment to return to; then he says there’s a possibility that he’ll be back in a couple of hours (suggestion is that it’s late; maybe they’re at Lestrade’s home?) and Lestrade says he’ll be awake. Sherlock leaves and Lestrade makes a final resigned comment that what they have isn’t stability or permanence but it’s good enough for him.

 **Structure of remix:**  
I wanted to play with more than one remix tactic. I also wanted to show different takes on the relationship and the characters.  
The framework was based on Wallace Stevens’s poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” I liked the poem because it deals with physical proximity and mental/emotional/spiritual isolation. Unlike the poem, I wouldn’t use the same style for each of the 13 parts, which were basically 13 mini remixes of the work. I did not want to maintain a single characterization of Sherlock and Lestrade for each part. This probably confused readers and may have been a mistake; or maybe I needed an author’s note explaining the structure of the remix. However, I was curious to see how it would be received with no explanations given, and if anyone would recognize the reference to the poem. I wanted to show a variety of voices or motivations for Lestrade and Sherlock, most of which would be different from the original.

My fixed elements were the pairing, a reference to this sex act as it was performed, and the feeling of isolation or different understandings of the relationship by Sherlock and Lestrade. I kept the number of POVs equal between Sherlock and Lestrade, with a few other POVs mixed in. Also, I wanted to avoid in the 13 parts a retelling of the sex act.

 **Title:**  
Not the best sounding one or the most enticing, but “blow-job” and “blackbird” were both B words with two syllables, and I hoped would signal Stevens’s poem more directly. I tried to find a substitute for blow-job, but couldn’t find one that worked as a title reference so well.

 

***

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLOW-JOB

 

1.  
“Oh, Mum,” sighed Greg, dipping a madeleine into his Scotch and hot milk. “It’s not a class thing, or an age thing, or a ... gorgeous bloke thing; it’s _him._ ”

“Chin up, pet. There’s a nice open letter to you in your alumni paper, with some quite practical advice. I put a clipping in with this week’s parcel.”

Greg moaned and picked crumbs from the dish balanced on his stomach. He couldn’t say what ached worse, his knees or his heart. If he had had lube to hand, instead of a dry finger, if he hadn’t eaten spicy Vindaloo before sucking that delicate-skinned thickness into his mouth, would his genius tormentor have stayed? Did he need more than Sherlock could, or would, ever give?

“...beads?”

“Sorry, Mum, missed that.” A creak of the loose board outside his door.

“Our Alan says...”

His creak? His step? A pick-pocketed key jiggling Greg’s lock?

“Must run.” He sploshed milk on his hand and sucked it up, pushing off the bed and into his slippers. “Call you tomorrow. Ta.”

Oh, tonight, tonight, they had at least tonight. He patted his coverlet in wordless promise.

  
 _[Remix tactics: parody; change of style; continuation of story events. The bookends of the 13 parts are direct references to the depressed expectations of Lestrade. The first is parody, the last is a serious fulfillment of his fears._  
 _L POV. References to him talking to his mother and friends about Sherlock as his boyfriend; to class, looks, and age as problems in the relationship; Lestrade’s depression and low expectations; specific references to aspects of the act; and to Sherlock’s uncertain return, with Lestrade waiting up for him. Gratuitous beverage abuse and Proustian snack.]_

 

2\. Fellatio against the wall of a holding cell, no matter how obliging his Detective Inspector might be, how flexible, how accommodating, how adapted to his tastes, was no substitute for a proper seeing-to in a comfortable bed. In that same DI’s own flat, own bed, under the correctly adjusted lampshade, with the intriguingly knobbed and swirled glass appliance in Sherlock’s coat pocket (in its original unbreached packaging, abstracted from the crime scene; it wasn’t a murder weapon, per se, so no loss to the “investigation” stumbling forward). (Cretins.)

He did like being...filled: vigorously, thoroughly, attentively, through the Inspector’s agency of instinct times experience achieving thrust. Age an advantage, there, knowledge, disreputable youth outclassing (underclassing) Sherlock’s own formative stumbles and missteps. Weight, too. A bear, a bull. A powerful elbow. His Inspector played his body, this transport, this needy, slender being like a voiceless violin. (Silence, he discovered early, was a scourge to greater endeavor; his swallowed gasps, his quiet exhalations bringing such a look, such focus, such tension to the hands and mouth impressed on him.) The less he offered, the harder he was pursued, the greater pleasure was provided to them both.

Doubt he planted, of his return. Doubt, that would pique his Inspector’s appetite. On the street outside the station he turned up his coat collar, brushed the back of his hand across the dampness of his flies (delightful). To home, to waste an hour or two, before the greater match.

  
 _[Alternate POV; expansion and explanation of events and motivations_  
 _SH POV; a shift in style from 1; added setting of a holding cell; references to the act, to mention made by Lestrade that Sherlock preferred “being fucked properly” with hands or toys or cock; subversion of Lestrade’s fear that his age was a defect; reference to class; reference to Sherlock’s silence during sex, with explanation that he’s using it to influence Lestrade’s performance; reference to the damp patch on the front of his trousers; reference to the uncertainty of his return as manipulation.]_

 

3.  
“Sir...”

“Pack up Donovan, nothing left for us here.”

“Press, Sir. And you’ve...”

“They’re for Sherlock. Have Duffy push them back; it’s a crime scene, not a circus. Dinner! Go home!”

“ _Knees, Sir_ ,” she hissed. God damn the Freak, but now she always noticed. And Anderson owed her a pint.

  
 _[Exterior POV; humor; reference to canon_  
 _Donovan’s POV; dialogue only; setting for the act is a crime scene; reference to the act by the state of Lestrade’s knees]_

 

4.  
What they had was nothing like stability or permanence. He’d be a fool to want that from Sherlock Holmes. Five years now, on the side, more than his marriage vowed for life. Short life. Sharp death. But there were no vows here. All present and past, no lies for a future. This filled the need: good enough to work off the anger, the rush, the frustration, the blood, the bang of the job. No better cure for a bungled bust than to plow into that plush, tight arse. Make him squirm. Make him hitch across the sheets. No better ease, truth be told, for coming up short, for stripes from that lashing tongue, than to suck him down into silence, undone against a wall. Greg had a tongue. He had a broad, blunt finger that knew its way up a drainpipe as well. And if he let himself at times be pushed to the floor, let his head be turned, his hands placed so, his patience put to...well. Give and take, eh?

They’d used each other naked. They’d seen each other’s scars. Greg took and had taken more than Sherlock knew, and that was more than good enough for him.

  
 _[Direct quotation, altering its meaning in the original (I broke the final sentence in two, to begin and end this section); change in characterization_  
 _L POV; setting not mentioned; different characterization of Lestrade, making him in control of the situation & using Sherlock for his own purposes; reference to the act, Lestrade pushed to the floor, his head turned, his finger used dry]_

 

5.  
His eyes, he liked his eyes, brown, dark, and deep, looking at him mid-suck, in this curious, giving act. In holding his look, he wondered what was seen in turn, if his own light irises could embrace wells of such lust, such want, such need. He imagined balancing a mirror on Greg’s-- _oh_ \--now what? He must have smiled. Interesting.  
 ****

_[Alternate POV; expansion of detail_  
 _SH POV; reference to Lestrade noting that Sherlock likes to watch the changing expression in Lestrade’s eyes]_

 

6.  
John Watson is not an unobservant man. When Sherlock comes in like this, he can tell what he’s been up to, and it makes him sad. Angry sad. Disappointed?

“Again?” he says, and it barely interrupts Sherlock’s coat-doffing performance, whipping off the scarf, stripping the gloves from his hands, swirling off the coat to hang it behind the door. There’s just a look thrown over Sherlock’s shoulder in mid turn and a frown before he cuts across the room for the kitchen. He won’t be best pleased when he smells the bleach John had to use, reclaiming their second-best saucepan. He’s been in a black, bored strop for the past week and John should be grateful for a diversion. But not this.

“That was petty,” says Sherlock in the doorway.

“Hygienic,” says John. Speaking of hygiene to the man with the wet patch on his crotch. He has the discretion to conceal the nicotine patches on his arms, but not this. Sherlock intercepts him looking, has anticipated it. Enjoys it, who can say?

“You’re a hypocrite, Doctor Watson.”

“Married to your work,” quotes John back at him. It’s not a new counter, but it still stings. It stings John. Sherlock makes a face, a not unpained one. “Don’t expect me to clean that up as well, when it dies,” John adds, but Sherlock’s already turned into his room, slamming the door.

  
 _[External POV; continuation of story; reversal of Lestrade’s friends’ reaction to the relationship by showing reaction by Sherlock's friend_  
 _John’s POV; reference to the act, to Sherlock coming home to his experiments with damp patch on his trousers. Also -- the original played with Lestrade's character, and here I played a bit with John's. He's jealous, more immature than we see onscreen, with a slightly different relationship to Sherlock.]_

 

7.  
The first time he touched Sherlock it was his fingers in his hair. Fist in his hair, pulling his head back and shining a pencil torch into his eyes. It felt shockingly good, his hand in that mop, dirty and damp as was, and the pulling of it, moving that heavy head, baring his throat. The first time Sherlock went down on him, fists in his trousers’ slack, thrusting him back against summer-hot bricks of the pub’s rear wall, kneeling in front of him oh God, intent on his work, was the next time Greg found himself knuckle deep in those curls, fingers grazing the skin under, over his skull, twisting in circles, trying not to grip and tug.

When Sherlock touched his hair, he was weirdly tentative. Gentle, petting him, or letting strands slide between his fingers, studying them. The gray he might like or dislike. The difference in the textures. Intimate, it felt, and that was how Greg liked to think of it.

  
 _[Expansion of detail, backstory_  
 _L POV; reference to Lestrade describing Sherlock petting and fingering his hair]_

 

8.  
 _Tonight, 8pm. SH_

Busy

_Nothing in your diary. Order from Bombay Temple, they know my likes. SH_

Brother & wife in London  
birthday

_Family’s boring. I’m not. SH_

Thicker than water

...

Deleted that you cunt

_Language, DI Lestrade. SH_

Tomorrow

_Busy. SH_

12

_Busy. SH_

11?

 _Oh, now you’re desperate._  
 _Busy. SH_  
....

 _Deleted that. I’ll have you off by 8:30. SH_  
...

_Deleted THAT. Be ready. SH_

  
_[Alternate POV; change in style & format; inserted scene, setup to sex scene; humor_  
 _SH & L, 3rd omniscient POV; text exchange; no setting given, but suggestion it’s Lestrade’s home; reference to Lestrade’s family; as in original, Lestrade bending to Sherlock's demands]_

 

9.  
If there was one thing Sherlock prized above all others when it came to human interaction, it was convenience, and Greg was certainly that. He was more, of course---whores were _convenient_ \--and by luck or willful blindness failed to realize it. If he did, if he tried to make this arrangement anything other than it was (whores delivered, whores were swift, universal, tractable, silent on command, disposable), then it would all be over. He’d lose again, who had lost so much, he’d be gone and done with Sherlock and that would be not good, not good at all. Fortunate he was so thick, fortunate he was so incapable of reading Sherlock’s tells (jacket sleeves, breathing, choice of words) (whores noticed his heartbeat) (Greg noticed when his muscles tensed, his scent, his taste, all commented on; was there more he kept to himself? Unlikely. He was so eager in the act to please, so anxious to perform). Sherlock himself did not know how they fit together, only that it worked. At the end of a case, it worked. In the middle of the night, it worked. In the dark despair of an alley, in a holding cell, on the carpet of his office, in the second-floor toilet of Barts, in Greg’s bed, on Greg’s sofa, over Greg’s table, in Greg’s arms; in Greg’s mouth; on Greg’s thighs; in his eyes, his hair, his voice, his hands broad, hot, generous on his back, across his skin, it functioned exceedingly well, it _worked._ More than _convenience_ , and only a fool like Greg would fail to see it was.

  
 _[Alternate POV; direct quote (first line of this section), with subversion of Lestrade’s meaning; implied backstory_  
 _SH POV; reference to Lestrade's close notice of Sherlock; reference to Lestrade's eagerness to please; Sherlock’s view that this arrangement works, with some insecurity on his part; no direct reference to the sex scene, other than Lestrade’s willingness to please]_

 

10.  
Greg’s beard was heavier than Sherlock’s. It grew in quicker, was rougher to the touch, Sherlock said. Greg couldn’t tell. Sherlock’s dark hair showed as shadow through transparent skin, but was seldom grown enough to scratch or catch; or Greg’s fingers were too calloused to feel. Sherlock shaved closely and was finicky about his regimen. He frequented barbers. He came to Greg once after such a visit, grinning, flushed, eager for a tumble. The sheets and pillows smelled of some oily scent, from his cheeks and neck, that permeated even the laundry hamper. He’d broken in on Greg once while he was shaving, impatient with some new rag of fact; he’d reached across, taken the razor from his hand, and shaved the last few strokes himself, pushing to be away. Not productive, it turned out, for them both; he’d never been so hard so fast so early on a Tuesday standing at his sink.  
*  
Sherlock’s own skin felt different under his fingertips and back of his hand, something he’d tried again and again to quantify, experimenting once with Novocain injections to his cheek, unpleasantly informative but still lacking in some quality he could not define. His beard was different to Lestrade’s. It was fascinating to have someone at hand, at his hand, over a span of years. He savored Lestrade’s aging, he was greedy to feel and compare over _time_ (oh, luxury of one person to whom he had tactile, unrestricted access over time) the alterations, the base lines. His beard was rougher than Sherlock’s, its growth more rapid. He shaved with a cruder implement, he took no good care of his skin. When Sherlock’s cock was in Lestrade’s mouth and Sherlock could graze his fingernails across the outline of his own flesh, himself, the lovely wet lining sliding across him, the fat and muscle and thicker dermis between, the rasping bristles of his cheek under his nails, pressing on himself through all, it was exquisite, it caused his knees to loosen, it heightened all his senses almost unbearably.

  
 _[Dual POV; expansion of detail, beard stubble; backstory  
alternating L  & SH POV; reference to Sherlock feeling Lestrade’s cheek and the outline of his cock through it; age and duration of the affair from Sherlock’s POV as an advantage; gratuitous shaving/unshaven kink]_

 

11.  
Sherlock was impatient, Sherlock was hard, and Greg loved him that way. There were advantages to a long fuse and a slow burn.

It started over a body in the morgue, a young thug, fit, naked, cold, and good riddance from the streets. Molly tired and ready for them to leave, Greg tired and overworked and ready to roll out, Sherlock...Sherlock strung tight as a wire, vibrating across the table and the corpse and tapping---poking the tattoo on the lately departed’s penis. Pinching it, absently, pulling the skin between his thumb and fingers and Molly wincing at the sight. Greg slipped open the top button of his shirt, reaction to gag impulse, and growled. “Leave it, Sherlock. Case closed.”

“What is it?”

“Irrelevant, inappropriate, asinine...”

“At which you excel; I’m asking what it’s meant to represent. No,” he held a hand up in Greg’s face, “Don’t try. Molly, be a good girl and cut that off for me. Oh, just the skin,” he sneered.

“I, no,” said the amazing, patient Molly. “Not if you’re just...no.”

“We’re leaving now. Thank you, Dr. Hooper.” Greg put a hand round Sherlock’s bicep, the other flat and low in the middle of his jacketed back, and propelled him away. “No,” he said, preemptively, bracing for argument. But Sherlock only slanted a look at him, going through the doors. Greg smiled to himself. Odd, but not unprecedented. For insurance, he kept his hand in place on his back, down the hallway to the lift. It felt good. It felt downright illicit, in public. The gesture he’d use for a cuffed prisoner. For warning. For comforting a woman. For a date. Which Sherlock was not and would never be. He faked a frown to Sherlock’s profile as he stabbed the button for the lift, and, ah. The look in Sherlock’s eye, the twitch of his mouth’s corner, the lean back against his arm and hand.

“Oh, yes?” he said, as the lift bell dinged and the doors opened. Sherlock quirked his mouth again, and stepped in among the four occupants. Students, damned students, with clipboards and lab coats.

“Irrelevant. Inappropriate. Indecent,” rumbled Sherlock, and turned facing front, at Greg’s back. The lift started with a little jolt, nudging them together. Up, not down. He hadn’t noticed; but Sherlock, surely, had. Pressure against his waist now. He knew those knuckles, there. Pressure against his waist and, when another jolt came, heralding the lift’s next stop, another pressure against his hip. No. Yes? No, surely no. Tattooed corpse cock did not, did definitely not, lead to this.

“Don’t overthink it, Detective Inspector,” said Sherlock, in his ear, damn the man, tall enough, just tall enough for his lips to be at that level when he bent his head.

“Get off,” muttered Greg, and the elevator gave another jolt, another floor, and that pressure against his hip became pronounced. The doors opened and Sherlock pushed; Greg stood his ground, the lift emptied, filled, and began to descend. Sherlock’s trousers were fine wool, summer blend, and his interest was firmly evident through them. Greg’s khakis, rumpled now, a bit worn, slid against him, when he shifted his weight. He did. Twice. He ran the map of Barts, what parts he knew, in his head; nothing suitable came to mind, though Sherlock knew the place intimately _(intimately). Jolt. Ding._ The floor of the lift vibrated under his feet. He shifted again and Sherlock pressed harder against him, breathing now on his neck. Or they could continue riding up and down, up and down, jolting along, until--

“We’re not doing this in a lift,” announced Sherlock in ringing tones (startling the sole remaining passenger, gray, untidy, and spectacled, squeezing a coffee container). _Jolt. Ding._ “He has these fantasies,” he tossed over his shoulder, smiling wide, shoving Greg forward and out, his hand where Greg’s had been, flat on his back.

“You consummate prick,” said Greg. Laughing, he couldn’t help it. Sherlock pushed him right, then left, then through swinging doors into a darkened room. Second floor? He’d lost count, he’d no idea what place this was, but there, there, was a corner, a wall against his back, Sherlock pulling close, pressing long and full and hard all against his front, kissing him.

  
 _[Additional scene; explanation for story detail_  
 _L POV; setting is an empty room at Barts; rationale for 15 minutes of Sherlock’s erection against Lestrade’s hip]_

 

12.  
Even against the wall  
ecstatic, interlocked  
they were of two minds  
a tree  
in which there were two blackbirds.

  
 _[Alternate POV; different style_  
 _Omniscient 3rd POV. This is a direct crib from Stevens’s style, in fact a remix of one of Stevens’s stanzas; reference to the act against a wall]_

 

13.  
He hadn’t known it was the last. Stayed up like a berk, waiting for Sherlock to return, take his time, get a bed under their backs. Woke on the sofa with the telly run to Jeremy Kyle and a crick in his neck. It took weeks, untallied weeks, before he got it clear. Weeks and only an offhand “No,” and a glance flicked to John waiting in the corridor, laughing. And oh, God, a grimace of pity from Donovan, when they swept away. He’d seriously misread John Watson and the home life of Baker Street.

He’d braced himself for this, for years. He’d assumed he’d drink. He’d assumed, surely, he’d feel pain. He hadn’t expected sheet lightning that froze and seared incandescent white; he hadn’t expected ash, only ash, left behind.

  
 _[Continuation of the story; fulfillment of fears in the story  
L POV; resolution to Lestrade’s fear that Sherlock will leave him and that it will hurt; reference to Lestrade staying awake, waiting for Sherlock, reference to the act as the last sex they’d have. Same characterization as the original, and complete reversal in tone from the opening parody.]_

 

 

***

That’s it.  
I didn't think I'd be able to come up with all 13 or to make them different. I was very pleased to have done it at all.

I thought it might stand out as an exercise in style, but I don't think it was very successful as a general entry within the context of the challenge. The title might have put readers off, or the first tongue-in-cheek segment. The inconsistency of characterization might have been a failure or puzzling. Or it was a lot to read in segments, a lot to ask of readers who were hopping from story to story among a long list of works on the LJ comm. One problem I had was that readers (naturally, I later realized) wanted to read it as one continuous narrative, and read the last section as a sad ending to the whole "story." I wasn't thinking about that, which was a mistake; I was only thinking about one logical continuation of the original fic, and that the end was the best place to put that kind of remix. Almost all the comments I received were about the sad ending. I'd wanted to make this overall more positive and less pathetic for Lestrade than the original. Please, feel free to imagine them, from a number of other sections, carrying on and continuing to learn about each other.


End file.
